A traveler's plea: Turn off your devices on vacation!

Dec. 9, 2012
|

According to a Marriott survey of 1,000 travelers, 36% check their e-mail even on the beach; 89% check e-mail and voicemail at least once a day (often multiple times), and 66% uploaded photos of themselves to social media sites while on vacation. / Kraig Scarbinsky, Getty Images

by Ellen Creager, Detroit Free Press

by Ellen Creager, Detroit Free Press

Increasingly, Americans are not truly vacationing when they go on vacation.

We leave home -- and sometimes spend thousands of dollars for a week or longer in a beautiful spot -- but are tethered by so much technology we never achieve true relaxation. We might as well remain in our basements, glazed eyes glued to the iPad, which shines just like the Florida sun on our pale faces.

As we head into winter vacation season, I am begging you, control your electronic usage. Either leave everything at home, or give yourself a one-hour window per day to go online and see what disasters you've left back home.

You cannot possibly live in the moment or have an original thought if you are spending every second photographing yourself and tweeting or posting about how you feel.

In fact, the most annoying tweets in the world are from travelers: "At Miami airport checking luggage." Who cares? Go live your life.

Hotel makes quiet zones

To counteract this irritating development, Marriott International has come up with a new idea -- "Braincation" zones at seven of its most beautiful resorts in the Caribbean and Mexico. These public zones are off-limits to cell phones, iPads and laptops.

"Some of the zones are on the beach, some are on the patio, one is on a fourth-floor common area, but all are in picturesque places that can be blocked off for quiet time," says spokeswoman Christa Romano.

The digital detox zones are available at Marriott Resorts in Aruba, St. Kitts, Grand Cayman and Curacao, the JW Marriott in Cancun, Casa Magna resorts in Cancun and Puerto Vallarta, the Renaissance Aruba and Frenchman's Reef in St. Thomas.

It's not a social experiment by Marriott but a smart marketing response to a survey it did of 1,000 travelers.

The survey revealed that 85% of vacationers had been annoyed by someone talking loudly on a cell phone; 36% check their e-mail even on the beach; 89% check e-mail and voicemail at least once a day (often multiple times), and 66% uploaded photos of themselves to social media sites while on vacation.

To me, these statistics confirm that electronics are controlling us now; we don't control them. We can never get away. We're trapped. We're on even when we're supposed to be off.

To me, it's like shallowly planted trees that never get a soothing rain. We are wilting.

Live that beautiful moment

Before you go on your winter vacation, ponder these questions.

If you do not live in the moment, where are you, really?

Is taking and posting endless photos from vacation an anxiety response, a way to remember the vacation when we get home because we weren't present for it while we were there?

Is tweeting or posting photos from vacation spots a form of bragging? If you couldn't post, would it diminish your enjoyment of the trip?

Why are you checking in with your office? Don't they give you vacation time? Are you afraid of losing your job?

If we can't bear to miss our neighbor's Facebook posts about her pedicure, shouldn't we just stay home?

For me, being unavailable is one of the very, very best things about traveling. You shouldn't have to share every moment of your trip to enjoy it.

So my advice when you take your winter holidays: Set up your own "braincation" zone.